Dr. Kai Chan

Biography

Kai Chan is a professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia, Canada. He holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Re-Wilding Social-Ecological Transformation. An interdisciplinary, problem-oriented sustainability scientist trained in ecology, policy, and ethics at Princeton and Stanford Universities, Kai strives to understand how social-ecological systems can be transformed into wilder ecosystems. He leads the CHANS lab (Connected Human-and-Natural Systems) and is a co-founder of CoSphere, a community of Small-Planet Heroes. Kai is a UBC Killam Research Fellow and a member of Canada's Clean16 cohort for 2020. He has been recognized as a fellow in the Leopold Leadership Program and in the Global Young Academy Environmental Leadership Program. Additionally, he is a member of the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists and serves as the lead editor for a new British Ecological Society journal, People and Nature. His work includes being a coordinating lead author for the IPBES Global Assessment and he also held the Fulbright Canada Visiting Research Chair at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2012.

Research Interests

Courses